Shark Tank
by Citizen Cane
Summary: House and Co. drop formalities and wallow in emotions running high, for better or worse.


_A/N: As usual, belonging to no specific timeframe or season, though it leans towards 5/6 (I guess?). Liberties taken as always, having fun with 'stream of consciousness' type play. This is probably the only bone I'll throw the Huddy camp and Christ, it is a measly one.  
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His headache is making him livid and all he wants to do is fuck her brains out. Men and women play a game that ends up being some kind of dance, figuratively speaking of course. He wants to bypass that, today. The subtle, backhanded compliments, the intentional jabs and all the Ps and Qs he's supposed to mind- he wants to flush them down the toilet because he's in no mood for games. He wins them all anyway, so why drag it out?

They're sitting at their little work table, as always, his precious ducklings, and from his desk he's glaring right at her, undressing her with his eyes, letting his imagination run wild and the hand that's rubbing at his throbbing leg keeps threatening to burrow down the front of his pants to take care of an entirely different kind of throbbing.

There is nothing that he would not do to her. Or let her do to him.

She is drop-dead gorgeous and she pretends as if she doesn't know it but he knows she does and wants to see her act like it. He wants to call her bluff but the timing is never in his favor but today he doesn't give a fuck about timing. There is no way that a girl with a body like hers doesn't know how to use it to get what she wants.

And he wants her to want him.

From what he can figure, he lost control of their little dance when he admitted, if only to himself, that something in him stirs for her. He carries a block of ice in his stomach and feels it only when he's talking to her. Right now, it's just him wanting her. Badly.

The playing field is uneven.

She catches him staring once, twice, and it makes her uneasy. His office is dark and his mood is shit, which she can handle, but when she catches him looking at her hungrily she never knows what to do. She regrets the teasing in these moments, wondering if maybe she should interact as little as possible with him. He's old enough to be her father but she's never been bothered by that fact, so why is it something she's always reminding herself of? Foreman's arm resting next to her own is an anchor, constantly keeping her grounded in the differential. His voice in her ear, warm and deep and almost monotone, is enough to keep her interested. House is still staring, this she's sure of. She just doesn't dare glance up to confirm.

Remy always ends up staring back.

He's more handsome than Foreman and wonders, as he watches the electricity spark between them, why he was never given a chance. He smiles while he says all the right things and until he recently lobbed most of it off his hair would bounce and shine while he did all the right things. The space on his finger where the wedding band used to be isn't even cold yet but he's been scoping out the meat market.

It's the worst idea in the world and he knows it's a terrible coping method but at the same time it's all he knows. With Allison gone its back to the basics and back to wanting to fuck anything he deems pretty enough to waste the effort on. Because some of them do take effort, the ones with half a brain, and Thirteen is firing on all cylinders. He's hurting, reeling even, and he knows that his lashing out is deliberate. Foreman's dating her? Tough shit, Eric. She's bisexual? Just a better challenge for him, not that it matters- have you seen his pearly whites? They topple walls, what chance does she have?

Apparently a really fucking good one. She deflects every advance, punches him in the balls with her sarcasm whenever he tries to purr velveteen compliments her way. It's infuriating but it makes him want her that much more. Robert Chase is used to getting what he wants when he wants it.

She wonders when he cut his hair before she even realizes she's staring from the hallway. She has a CD of his that she knows is one of his favorites and she wants to give it back so that it stops burning a hole in her nightstand. The part of her that knows this is just an excuse to see him is silenced and shoved to the back of the bus, tied and gagged and ridiculed. Still, it's her heart that flutters and sinks when she sees him. He looks tired, angry…a younger version of the man next door, brooding in his office. That House fails to notice her means something is wrong but she doesn't care what. She doesn't work for him anymore and she isn't Stacy Warner. Her and House are no longer each others problems.

And yet the same heart that skips a beat for a murderer freezes up at the thought of House wanting someone else, someone who isn't her or Stacy. She sees it in his face, etched in every line, buried beneath the mask of pain- interest. Undiluted, feral interest. In what? In Thirteen. It simmers her blood, blood that comes to a boil when she sees her ex with the same wolfish leer and in a split second all she knows is hate. She despises this girl for doing everything she failed to do during her career in Diagnostics. She bites her lip and looks away before she goes too far and says she's happy that Thirteen has Huntington's because she's not. It's not even a small relief.

Cameron's just jealous- she knows she's not naturally as attractive as her. She's a year or two older but that gap seems like a decade. She knows she isn't leggy or busty or even just a sexy dresser. She's plain and conservative and the boldest thing she's done recently is lighten her hair. Chase had loved her anyway. She realizes then, as she turns and leaves the way she came, just how much she misses him.

Chris Taub is sitting in the middle of a shark tank and it petrifies him. He's a small fish or a pacifist shark, whichever serves the purpose of the metaphor in his head. These people, these brilliant doctors, they're ruthless. To have called just Amber cutthroat was unfair- they all went psychotic when they smelled blood in the water. And now? Now it has him terrified.

He feels House's stare on the back of his neck even though he knows he's looking at Thirteen but it's not important because House is way back yonder in his office. Chase and Foreman, however, are circling each other right in front of him, challenging with staredowns and it's all over the fresh meat at Foreman's side. He knows that Chase knows that Thirteen is spoken for and he knows Chase well enough by now to know that that doesn't fucking matter. The Aussie will tear her away from him if he has to and no part of that process is pretty. For all the good white teeth and a strong jaw do him, Taub has been with Chase to bars and knows that the handsomeness stops at the surface.

He's no angel, himself, though- he thinks with his dick just like the rest of them and it's led him into places and people that led him into trouble. It could happen again, he knows this. That he's married stopped meaning anything when he broke her trust, their vows. The ring is just a reminder and an albatross but he makes sure to dutifully wear it, to go through the motions and play the part of good husband because he truly does love his wife.

Still, if Thirteen said 'yes' he'd fuck her senseless. Would she say yes? He doubts it while he contemplates the chance of it actually happening and now he's joined the circle of fins without meaning to. Now he's staring, too, and he feels the tension at the table, in the room, on the entire hospital floor. He feels the air of competition but mistakes it for his heart falling into his balls. Or maybe it's just that his shit is shrinking back inside him- seriously, he's that scared. These people are brutal- it could be war. Mostly it's just a bloodbath. He didn't sign up for this.

She knows before the headache starts forming at the front of her skull that this is going to be a nightmare. It's a headache she calls House and it's a pain that should really be in her ass, which would make it much more aptly named. The only thing keeping her temper in check as she blazes a warpath towards Diagnostics is the rhythmic click-click of her heels and all of a sudden all she can think about is how they're too high to be business-casual and she's paid way too much for them. She dreads having to stand there while House fires off at the mouth about her new outfit because she's not in the mood today to have him notice it. But of course he'll notice it. He always notices it. He's House. And lately he's been distracted.

She knows it isn't Cameron, that fire died out long ago, but she wishes it was. She wishes it was because that would mean House pays attention to two specific sets of tits and not just anything that happens along. If it's Dr. Hadley that he's fascinated by then that means there's something wrong with her. She wants so badly for him to look at her the same way, even if he sometimes gets his creepy on when he ogles. It makes her feel old that he doesn't, getting older every day, but her ass is tight and her tits are still at her chest and she knows that when she gets enough sleep the crow's feet are barely noticeable. Not that it should matter- he's the one that put them there at the corners of her eyes. What the fuck does Cosmo know, anyway? A woman can age gracefully, half of those cover model sluts are fake. Airbrushing, Photoshop. What she has is real, she's always known it, so fuck that.

And as a matter of fact, fuck House. Snarky bastard with his little minions and his mind games and bullshit. Enough is enough, now. Today, she will take her hospital back from him. He's signing the papers she has clutched at her side and if he refuses them she's going to show him the door. The adrenaline high is familiar, she gets herself pumped over the idea of finally, finally winning one…but she knows how this is going to turn out and today isn't a good day for her to have a good cry in her office. And she knows, oh God she knows, that this would all be so much easier if she didn't like him so fucking much. She doesn't try to figure it out- she knows she'll never understand why. Instead, she just keeps her fingers crossed that he'll notice she's not wearing any underwear.

Her skirt is tight enough.


End file.
